Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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working order yet in an act symbolic of the pattern of their relationship it is Puhi
who peels the wrapping off his Topsy. 541
While Martin sees the way the images are filmed as an example of the “richness and
texture that are stunning in their impact”, Bilbrough believes this concentration on the
visuals can be a disadvantage since “the cinematography by its very virtuosity can
dominate us with its craft, its beauty over its content”. He cites the closing shot of Puhi
stooped over, chopping wood in her backyard, with Niki standing close to her but with
his back to her, as being “almost too ideal”. 542 Bilbrough clearly wants to challenge
Ward’s basic aesthetic but to do so he falls back upon a less sophisticated notion of
documentary realism, strong in the New Zealand tradition, that regards anything too
obviously artistic as suspect.
This argument is continued through a discussion of the non-diegetic sound in the film.
While Bilbrough praises the use of diegetic sound in the film, as being “lucid and
simple” and clearly linked to “a documentary purpose”, he sees the Maori flute music
used in the scene where Puhi is labouring up the drive carrying a sackful of groceries as
having “an irresistible poetry, that appeals wholly to our imagination. Puhi becomes
even older, almost archetypal, like the mysterious outcast crone in a fairy-tale or a
medieval wayfarer”, thus distracting the viewer from the “unqualified hardship” of the
scene. 543 According to Bilbrough’s argument, Ward departs from the true spirit of
documentary by mythologising his subjects, thereby detracting from the harsh reality of
their situation. Martin has a different interpretation of this aspect of the film. She
regards the flute music accompanying the image of Puhi trudging “along a dusty road
bent by the years and by the weight of the box on her back” as helping to link this scene
to the scene of the heron, with its connotations of death and the afterlife, where the flute
is also played on the soundtrack. “The connection is made between the tangi which
opens the film and the possibility that the next tangi may be for her”. 544 Ward would no
doubt see the “reality” in which Puhi lives as including spiritual and symbolic
dimensions, but Bilbrough’s distaste for the “poetry” and “imagination” that this
encompasses appears to imply a more limiting conception of the real – one that
arguably had dominated much New Zealand film and literature up to this point.
541 Martin, "In Spring One Plants Alone: A Matter of Seeing It," 11.
542 Bilbrough, "In Spring One Plants Alone: Telling the Story," 15.
543 Bilbrough, "In Spring One Plants Alone: Telling the Story," 15.
544 Martin, "In Spring One Plants Alone: A Matter of Seeing It," 11-12.